What do you think is more powerful Physical strength or the power of words?

Question

What do you think is more powerful Physical strength or the power of words?

Answer

quotI have little to offer thee,quot whispered the butterfly, quotbut all that I am is yours.quotbrbrCC Ryder brbrMy goal with this poetic effort was to try to put as much meaning as I could into the fewest words, and still maintain the musical aspect, the poetics of the poem itself.brbrI use it in English classes in college to introduce students to the power of words and the importance of word choice. At first glance, it really does not look like much, but when you start to contextualize all its littlest parts, things begin to happen. The first thing to do is to define for yourself the terms found in the poem, things like thee, whispered, butterfly, I am. So, what is a butterfly? Why would a poet pick the butterfly as the focus of the poem? Why does the butterfly whisper instead of saying or shouting or crying. What is this phrase quotI amquot about here in the poem? Isnt this supposed to be what man heard God say for the first time? How do these major parts fit together. brbrMost of the time it doesnt take the students long to define a butterfly as something delicate and beautiful, something easily destroyed that flutters instead of flies, kind of like a dance in flight from flower to flower, but the problem with the butterfly is that it doesnt have much in the way of protection. Its so powerless, and it seems as if it knows it, by what it whispered to the listener, or is it the reader, the butterfly is talking to? On balance, it would seem the quotI amquot persona holds the power by the nature of very phrase itself in terms of its social and religious context. God can do anything anytime anywhere. And about the only thing a butterfly can do is to get crushed in the wind, and that is why it whispers instead of shouts because it has a small voice in a small powerless body. If you fly then you gotta be light, right?brbrAnd these are the most usual responses to the poem, at first. Then, sometimes, not always, and not regularly, someone in the class whispers, saying yeah but wait, quotYeah, but wait, the butterfly also comes out of a cocoon. In fact, a butterfly does not even start out as a butterfly. At first, its a caterpillar, a bug, ugly being, that you want to squish away its ugliness. It kinda invites its own demise, either into a butterfly or a squished bug. So, then, what does being a caterpillar have to do with the power of the poem, the words there, taking up a line and a half of paper at most. Okay, what is this poem about, again? Oh yeah, its about the butterfly having not very much to offer to the listenerreader because its so small and insignificant, right? But what about the fact that theres more to it than being a butterfly making a small offering, nothing really. I wonder if the fact that it comes from being a caterpillar to a butterfly makes a difference in what the poem is trying to say to me? Lets see. quotAquot caterpillar becomes quotthequot butterfly in the poem, moving from insignificant ugly to less insignificant beautiful. What is happening actually here? In the simplest fo terms, the caterpillar is changing, yeah, chaning into a butterfly. But why would that be important in the poem, adding to its meaning for the listenerreader? What does it do again? Oh yeah, it changes. Change. What is change? Is it good? Is the fact that the butterfly can change from the caterpillar into a new quotselfquot important? Oh wait. Change is something that an ugly powerless little caterpillar and butterfly experience naturally while humans hate to change, but when change happens it comes from something powerful within the human being. In fact, many people focus on the fact that what makes the human being the most powerful of the species is due to the fact that she can change. Humans have the ability to change and that has proved to be their most powerful advantage of the rest of the world. So many extinctions have come from not having the ability to change. Whoah! Now that changes everything in terms of the poetic elements in the poem. Such a short poem carrying a very large point to be made about the nature of man. And, it begs the question, why does it take so much for mankind to change. We humans hate change. Or, is it the social part of ourselves hates change. Society hates change. It seeks status quo, sameness, a level of being that requires nothing. brbrNow, I think you can see that this poem is so much more than it appears to be. So, I ask you. What do you think is more powerful Physical strength or the power of words? I dont think its a hard choice. Do you? brbrWhen you can discuss a line and a half of words for three hours or more because whats in those words spills over into much more space than what is on a page of paper, I believe the answer becomes obvious. Words have the power to change people just as the caterpillar changes to become a butterfly, another being, changing from ugly to beautiful. Then when one adds to that the syntactical choices one makes in composing language, to consciously make the effort to cram into a very small space, as much meaning as words can carry, then you not only have reached the essence of what poetics is, but one has reached the goal of words, to change things. They are the dynamic that drives mans being. Man cannot even be physically strong without thinking about what that means first. She must define what that means before being able to achieve it. brbrI hope this clarifies it for ya. I certainly enjoyed thinkin bout the issue.brbrCC Ryderbrutopianwizard